


after all the things i've lost on you

by yunmin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reunions, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunmin/pseuds/yunmin
Summary: When the Falcon lands, there are seventeen people in the hangar. Leia, Finn, Admiral Statura, Poe Dameron, the dozen pilots from the refitted Blue Squadron and Wedge. Add to that the number of droids – one for each of the pilots, and Threepio at Organa’s side as always – and it feels too crowded to be intimate, and not crowded enough to be able to slip away unnoticed. So Wedge stays there, attempting to continue his briefing while he’s aware that everyone’s attention has slipped to the YT-1300 class freighter behind him.
In which Luke returns, and Wedge has absolutely no idea what to do about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written on tumblr, for [rcguecne](http://rcguecne.tumblr.com/) who asked about "a TFA Luke and Wedge reunion... Wedge would clearly punch Luke then have a massive break down..." This is not exactly that, but something close.
> 
> Mild spoilers for Aftermath: Life Debt ahead, as though I am still not 100% convinced on the idea of Wedge/Norra, you will pry Wedge & Snap's father/son thing out of my cold dead hands.
> 
> Title is from LP's [Lost on You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn3wJ1_1Zsg), which was flagged up to me as potentially being a cauldron of Luke/Wedge feels, and oh boy were they right.

When the Falcon lands, there are seventeen people in the hangar. Leia, Finn, Admiral Statura, Poe Dameron, the dozen pilots from the refitted Blue Squadron and Wedge. Add to that the number of droids – one for each of the pilots, and Threepio at Organa’s side as always – and it feels too crowded to be intimate, and not crowded enough to be able to slip away unnoticed.

So Wedge stays there, attempting to continue his briefing while he’s aware that everyone’s attention has slipped to the YT-1300 class freighter behind him.

He gives up completely when he hears the Falcon’s gangway lower, and the clap of feet across it, and the peal of delighted laughter that has to be Rey falling into the arms of her friend. Then there’s Chewie’s roar, distinct and unforgettable, as he leans down to embrace Leia. Artoo trundles his way down the ramp, only to have BB-8 eagerly race forward to greet him.

Besides Wedge, Jessika Pava emits a loud, vocal, gasp.

She’s spotted what Wedge has been too slow to see; the cloaked figure in the shadow of the Falcon’s door. Luke. It has to be. Leia Organa pushes her way past the small crowd around her and advances up the ramp in a predatory fashion. There’s some moments of quiet conversation between them, too low for anyone to hear anything they say, then Leia pulls her brother into a fierce hug. They stay like that for an imperceptible amount of time, until Leia loosens her hold, folds Luke’s arm in her own, and brings him down the ramp to where Rey and Finn and Poe and Statura are.

“It’s really him,” Jess says, sounding incredulous and breathless and amazed and exactly what Wedge should be feeling right now. “It’s really him. Guys. Wow.”

The remainder of Blue Squadron stare down at the diminutive Jedi Master, the unassuming man with grey hair and a beard that Rey’s introducing to Finn and Poe, both of whom look slightly stunned at the apparent casualness of Rey’s tone. Whatever Leia’s said to Luke, it’s soothed him, because he seems calm as he talks to them.

Wedge balls his hands up into fists. Poe’s beckoning to the rest of the pilots, and Luke turns his head, attention finally falling on the separate gathering of a dozen pilots in their orange jumpsuits and one older man in the olive-green Resistance uniform.

Wedge wants to – he doesn’t know what he _wants._ To punch Luke, to hug him, to kiss him, deck him to the floor, turn around and never see him again. He’s wandered back in like he’s been away for a matter of months, not for years upon years, has made it seem like Wedge and Leia and the Resistance haven’t spent years and sacrificed countless lives in looking for him, like an entire system of planets wasn’t destroyed by the First Order because Luke wasn’t there to help them stop it.

Wedge stops that train of thought. That’s not fair on Luke.

It doesn’t stop the chaotic mix of emotions that churn away in his chest, that are threatening to choke him, swelling up until he can barely breathe. He can’t do this. He can’t.

He turns and walks out the hangar without looking back.

.

He doesn’t expect anyone to notice or come after him, as focused as everyone’s attention was on Luke.

After all these years, Wedge should probably have learnt not to underestimate Temmin Wexley, who uses the advantage of his height to catch up with Wedge not one hundred metres out of the hangar.

“Wedge,” he says, falling into step beside the other man. “Are you okay?”

Wedge isn’t quite sure what to say to that that isn’t an outright lie, or more truth than he is comfortable revealing in a public corridor. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He can feel himself shaking even as he ploughs resolutely on, with no thought other than getting as far away from the hangar as possible. He bites his lip to stop the flood of words that threatens to erupt from his mouth, words that he knows will be a litany of nonsense and _every_ desperate thought he’s been holding in since he realised that Luke wasn’t coming back.

Now Luke is here, and Wedge doesn’t know what to do about it.

Half the fabric of Wedge’s reality had shattered when Luke vanished all those years ago. It’s been tenderly stitched and glued and selvaged back together, enough that Wedge has enough pieces of it intact that he can function, but it’s still fragile, with a gaping hole still where Luke had been. Luke’s return threatens to dislodge every other piece, rip up the seams and tear all Wedge’s hard work asunder. He’d told Leia that he didn’t want to be here when Luke got back – he was due to ship out with Blue on their next mission – but the Falcon had arrived earlier and without much forewarning.

“Dad?”

Wedge tears himself away from his thoughts. Snap is now standing in front of him, and his use of the affectionate nickname that’s hung between them ever since Wedge’s disastrous attempts at dating Snap’s mum many years ago indicates the level of his concern. His brow is furrowed. Wedge looks around and finds that his feet have defaultly taken him to the observation deck on the other side of the ship. There’s no one else there. They’re on their own.

“Is this about Luke?”

Wedge sighs and takes a seat. He wrings his hands together, one of his thumbs worrying at the joint between forefinger and thumb on his other hand.

“Look, Wedge, you’ve got to talk to me here.” Snap takes a seat beside Wedge. “I can keep guessing at things, but I’m not really sure where I’m going, or I can go and get someone else—” Wedge shoots Snap a look which very clearly questions who Snap would go and get, seeing as how he’s the person who knows Wedge best on base right now, with the exception of Leia. (And Luke. Oh sith, that’s going to take some getting used to; Luke is _here_.) “Or not. What’s going on?”

“It’s about Luke,” Wedge says, not that that’s really a surprise. “Have you ever seen someone and you’re not sure whether to deck them to the ground or hug them?” He looks down and his hands are still shaking. He pulls one into a fist, just to see how it feels, and imagines—

“All the bloody time,” Snap replies. “Every time Pava decides to scare the shit out of me by doing some stupid stunt on a mission, Poe most weeks.” He shrugs. “If we’re talking people we love, I did punch Penn once after they scared me stupid. Felt awful about it for weeks, though, so I’m not sure I’d advise it as a course of action?”

Wedge flattens his hand out again, then splays them both across his knees, gripping tight. “I figured that.”

There’s a moment of silence, as Snap debates what to say next. “When—” He hesitates a moment. “When Mum came back, to Akiva, I hated her. The idea that she could just have been gone for all those years and then just expect to waltz back into my life. I wasn’t very kind to her.”

“She told me,” Wedge says. “She worried about you constantly – I know that it doesn’t make it better, but it was her principle concern about getting into that Y-Wing at Endor, whether you would be okay. And even afterward. She cared.”

“Yeah, see, that’s the thing. Even while I hated her for leaving me, I knew in the back of my head she’d gone to do what she thought was right, that she was doing good in the galaxy. Whatever Luke’s been doing…” Snap trails off, unsure. “Well, it sure wasn’t that.”

Wedge nods, swallowing the lump that’s formed in his throat. Ultimately they don’t know what Luke was thinking when he went away, whether he really did think that he was doing the right thing in fleeing. Wedge has never been privileged enough to know what Luke is thinking.

“I should talk to him,” Wedge says, pushing himself up. He’s stopped by Snap’s hand on his shoulder.

“Now?” Snap asks, raising an eyebrow and pulling an expression that clearly expresses he thinks that that’s a bad idea. “I mean, yes, you should. I’m not going to argue that point. You should definitely talk. But… Look, I just don’t want you to say something you’ll regret.”

“The only things I regret with Luke are all the things I never said.”

Wedge has never been good at putting what he wants into words, articulating what was in his heart into something that another person can understand; not even Luke, who could literally know what Wedge was feeling, had ever come close to understanding the turmoil inside of Wedge’s head.

But Luke is the only person who Wedge feels has ever got close. Older and wiser, he can recognise his fumblings with Norra for what they were; a desperate grasp for familiarity, for a mother and a sister and a lover rolled into one, someone who could find a path forward for him. Ultimately, Norra was unable to play any of those roles – not even his lover, after everything that went down – and there was no reason why she should have.

“Still,” Snap says. “There’s no shame in not being ready to see him. No one would blame you.” He says it with a tone that says he knows that Wedge was planning on running, not just taking the mission with Blue Sqaudron that should have taken him out of Luke’s path, but taking mission after mission after that to avoid this confrontation. And he says it in a way that suggests that he might agree with it as a coping strategy.

“I—”

The door to the observation deck opens, saving Wedge from having to answer. He looks up and Jessika Pava is standing there.

“Is there something you need, Jess?” Snap asks, immediately defensive.

Jess is regarding Wedge with an odd look on her face. Scrutinising him. Wedge wonders what he looks like – pale, clammy, like a rug has been pulled out from under him by Luke’s continued existence – and wonders what she makes of it. And then she catches him watching her watch him, and immediately straightens up. “Commander Dameron asked me to find you and asks that we resume the briefing at the earliest convenience,” she says.

Wedge sighs, and Snap flicks his gaze off Pava to the other man, ready to volunteer to take over the briefing if needs be. “Of course. Thanks, Pava,” Wedge says. “Can you round everyone back into the hangar for me? Briefing to recommence in—” He checks his chrono. “Let’s call it at 1500, okay?”

That’s in about twenty minutes time. Pava nods, then bites her lip. She worries at it, and then says, “I know it’s not any of my business, but Luke—” She hesitates, seemingly unsure about whether her news will be welcomed. “Luke Skywalker was asking after you. He wanted to know how you were?”

Wedge’s eyes widen in surprise. He knows that Luke saw him, that there was no hiding that he was with Leia and the Resistance, but… it’s still a shock. Luke has far more important things to worry about. “And what did you tell him?” he asks, because if the pilots have been spreading gossip about him he needs to know.

“Not much,” Jess says. “It’s… It wasn’t our place. Isn’t our place. Just that you were well. Teffer made a crack about you being a hard-ass with no sense of humour. Skywalker laughed at that one, by the way.”

Wedge can distinctly remember those words being used about him before, and Luke looking at the report in front of him in distinct befuddlement because – well, Wedge just preferred his pilots alive to dead, which was why he worked them hard, and while his sense of humour might be, well, dark, it was certainly there. The prank he and Luke had pulled on Solo the week before had been testament to that.

“Well, I don’t think you’ve besmirched my reputation too much,” Wedge replies. “Thanks, Jess. Now, scram, or you’ll never get anyone back in time for the briefing.”

“Yes sir!” She throws a salute with a cheeky grin, then runs off to gather the rest of Blue Squadron up.

Wedge peers after her. Snap just rolls his eyes. “Oh to be young,” he muses.

“Come on son,” Wedge says, offering Snap a hand up. “We’ve got work to do.”

“And Luke?” Snap asks.

“Can wait,” Wedge decides. “Just like I’ve been waiting.”

.

At 1500 Jess manages to assemble all of Blue Squadron’s pilots, plus Poe and Wedge, back in the hangar for the briefing. Although the sight of the Millennium Falcon behind them is a minor distraction, Wedge manages to get through the entire mission statement this time, with a couple of amendments from Poe in the wake of Skywalker and Rey’s arrival.

“Does anyone have any questions?” Wedge asks.

The pilots share glances, and all shake their heads. Wedge’s briefing was comprehensive.

“Then see Dameron about your simulator run time, and then you’re dismissed,” he tells them. “Be back here at 0200 for mission launch.” They all fall out, towards Dameron, apart from Snap, who comes from where he was standing across the briefing table to Wedge’s side. “That includes you, Snap.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Snap waves Wedge off. “Don’t look now, but you’ve got a shadow.”

“Huh?”

Snap flicks his eyes towards the main hangar doors, and Wedge follows his gaze. He finds Luke lurking there, attempting to be surreptitious and not really succeeding. Wedge pointedly does not let his gaze linger, however much he wants to, and turns his attention back to Snap.

“Oh,” Wedge says.

“I can go and chase him off if you want,” Snap offers. “Take Pava with me, she’d tie him up in questions while you go and find somewhere to hide.”

Wedge pauses, but shakes his head. “No. It’s okay. I should talk to him before I leave. I’ll be fine,” he says, when Snap gives him a worried glance. It’s a statement intended to reassure himself as much as it is Snap. He runs his hands over the tops of his thighs, smoothing down the material of his trousers, and takes a long deep breath.

He was _never_ going to be ready for this, but there is very little in life he’s ever been ready for, so this is really just another day.

His steps over towards Luke are slow and deliberate. He thinks about attempting to make it look casual, but knows he couldn’t if he tried, and that there is little point in doing so. Luckily, no one’s attention is on them. It’s just the two of them, and the thirty-five year gulf of history between them.

“Wedge,” Luke says, when Wedge is close enough that he can speak normally and still be heard.

“Hello Luke,” Wedge replies, drawing to a halt in front of the other man. Standing awkwardly in the hangar doorway, he folds his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t know what to do with them, doesn’t want to give in to the earlier temptation to clench his hand into a fist and pull it back and let it fly towards Luke’s face.

Luke doesn’t know what to do or what to say either. He opens his mouth a couple of times, looking like there are things he wants to say, but he thinks better of it.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Wedge says, because that’s simple. He can manage that one. It's the truth, honest and unadulterated, because even at his darkest moments he has never truly wished for any harm to come to Luke.

“I’m glad you are too,” Luke responds. He takes a step forward, bringing himself into Wedge’s space – close enough to touch if either one of them could just reach out and do it. “I asked one of the pilots how—”

“Jess,” Wedge cuts in, because after all these pilots have done for the Galaxy, the missions they’ve gone on risking their lives to try and bring Luke back here safely, the least he can do it learn their names. “And she gave you the run-around, which is quite something really, because she’s worshipped the ground you walk on since she was four.”

Luke looks a little taken aback, possibly even surprised. “She said you were okay. And then someone else was complaining about the number of training runs you make them do…”

“That would be Teffer, I reckon, and I’m just trying to keep them sharp.”

Luke smiles. Only a small one, but his eyes light up and for the first time Wedge can see a trace of that boy he met in a hangar on Yavin, before he had the weight of the entire Galaxy on his shoulders. “Of course you are,” he says. “Like always. You were always good at that.” He lifts his hand – his real one, not the exposed mechanical one – up, brushing Wedge’s sleeve.

Wedge shakes the touch off on instinct, and Luke withdraws. He can’t hide the look of disappointment that crosses his face, though he blinks it away quickly. “Sorry,” Wedge says, before he can stop the word coming out of his mouth, because he hadn’t meant to shake Luke off quite so quickly.

“No, I shouldn't—” Luke shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have presumed it was okay. I hurt you, I know that much, and…”

He trails off, bowing his head, knowing how completely inadequate his words are.

“Force, Luke,” Wedge says, a hint of the raw anger that’s been brewing deep in his soul for all these years escaping into his voice, and Luke looks back up. “You came in and I didn’t know whether to punch you or hug you.” He clenches his hands in his pockets, not wanting to do either but desperately wanting to do both. “I still don’t.”

“I know which of those I want, and I know which of those I probably deserve.”

“Fuck, no one deserves it!”

Wedge’s words echo back at him, and he’s surprised at the ferocity of them. He digs his hands out of his pockets. He can’t just stand here like he’s trying not to care anymore. “None of us have deserved any of the things that have happened to us. All the mistakes we’ve made. We just have to keep fucking going and hope to make the best of what we get. Not just fuck off to the middle of kriffing nowhere when the going gets tough. Fuck that. Fuck all of this.”

(Fuck _you_ , he thinks, but that might be a little too on the nose for this conversation.)

Luke… laughs.

Wedge really could, quite genuinely, punch him right now.

“What’s so funny?” Wedge asks, folding his arms across his chest, because this is not the reaction he expected.

“Nothing,” Luke says, still grinning, but trying desperately to hide it and failing so utterly. “Force, I’ve missed you Wedge.”

Wedge has missed Luke too.

Luke tries to compose himself. “Leia’s already started reading me the riot act, don’t worry. You can read it to me too, if it makes you feel better. But I know the weight of my failings.” A shadow of guilt passes over his face. “I thought I had all the answers. And then I didn’t. And I thought the Galaxy would be better off without me, and I was wrong about that too. I just… I want to fix what I can.”

“Some of it can’t be fixed.”

“You told me I had to try.”

“I thought there was no such thing as trying. Do or do not, isn’t that what you were taught?”

“The Jedi were wrong about many things. Maybe that was one of them.”

Wedge looks at Luke. He’s always been a difficult man to stay angry at, a ball of hope and sincerity and good intentions, and that’s true even after all the hurt he’s caused Wedge.

“I’ve missed you too,” Wedge says.

Luke smiles. “So, have you got any closer to deciding whether you’re going to punch me or hug me?”

Wedge raises his eyebrows. “The first option is still tempting, especially if you start wise-cracking.” But then he smiles too, lips quirking upward. “Oh, just… come here, will you?”

Luke wastes no time in stepping up into Wedge’s space, wrapping his arms around Wedge in a fierce hug. Wedge feels Luke’s hands clutch at the back of his uniform, folding fabric between them, as Luke buries his head in the nape of Wedge’s neck. He’s shorter, Wedge is sure of it, his chin coming to rest on his shoulder in a way it never did previously. Wedge threads a hand through Luke’s hair, his other arm wrapped around Luke’s shoulders, and pulls him as tight as he can manage, until there is no space remaining between them.

Wedge can feel some of his anger, some of his fear, dissipating as he feels how tight Luke is holding, reassures himself that Luke is real, that he wants to stay, that he’s clinging just as close as Wedge himself is.

It still doesn’t make everything okay. Not in the slightest. But holding Luke, with Luke’s nose nuzzling at the patch of skin behind Wedge’s ear, at the edge of his hairline, Wedge starts to think that maybe it could be, some day, after everything has settled and they’ve talked it out and they can begin mending all the bridges they’ve broken and said all the things they’ve left unsaid for far too long.

Luke mumbles something into the collar of Wedge’s uniform, something that Wedge can’t quite make out. Reluctantly, he loosens his hold on Luke, letting his hands slip down to rest on Luke’s waist as he draws back, just enough so that they are facing each other again.

Luke looks raw. There’s dampness at the corner of his eyes, that hasn’t quite turned into tears but looks close to it, but it’s not… sadness, exactly; it looks like something closer to relief. His hands have settled around Wedge’s neck, toying with the ends of Wedge’s hair. This is close, _intimate_ , in a way they hadn’t been even for the years before Luke vanished off the face of the Galaxy.

“I thought about you all the time,” Luke mutters. “I missed you so much. Every day. Didn’t realise how much I relied on being able to call you up when I needed you until I couldn’t anymore. How many times I turned around to say something to you—”

Wedge contemplates shutting Luke up with a kiss, because this – it’s too much, too many words that Wedge has wanted to hear for years suddenly coming out of Luke’s mouth – but they’re still standing in what is technically a public space, and Wedge knows that it’s a bad idea, too soon for anything like that. Instead he just shushes Luke. “Luke, Luke,” he says. “Later.”

It pains him to do it, but he drops his hold on Luke and takes a step back, completely separating them. “I’ve got pilots to supervise. I’m sure Leia has more questions for you. And command will want to debrief you properly.”

Luke nods. “Of course.” He suddenly looks a little sheepish. “I might have slipped off to find you while she was talking with Rey…”

Wedge avoids slamming the heel of palm to his forehead, but it’s a near thing. Luke’s lucky he’s endearing, and those blue eyes have lost none of their power over the years, and that Wedge has always been weak to Luke’s gaze whenever it’s focused on him. “Yeah, you best go and see her before she sends a search party for you. I’m amazed she let you out her sight.” Wedge isn't sure he wants to, either. “Tell you what, I’ll escort you to Leia’s office, make sure you can’t vanish to the middle of nowhere between here and there. Leia can do whatever she wants with you while I get back to my job, then I’ll meet you in the mess for dinner?”

“Wedge, I’m not going to vanish again—” Wedge gives Luke a particularly pointed look. “Okay, you’re never going to let me live it down, I get it. It was stupid. But yeah,” he says, with a smile. “That sounds nice. And then we can talk?”

Luke sounds hopeful, but there’s a note of concern in his voice, like he’s worried that Wedge wouldn’t want to. “A little,” Wedge replies. “Not because I don’t want to,” he’s quick to clarify. “But I ship out with Blue Squadron tonight. We shouldn’t be away too long, but you know how these things are. After I come back, we can talk more – if you’ll still be here?”

It’s not a question about Luke going off into the middle of nowhere again, but a practical one about whether he’ll be remaining on this particular Resistance base. “Hopefully,” Luke says. “There are things I need to show Rey, but I think she needs the time here as well. So I’ll be here, I think, unless something else happens that needs my attention.”

Wedge nods, knowing the likelihood of that is higher than they both want, but this – this is good enough. “Yeah. Okay. We can worry about that later. Dinner today, that’s a start. First, we really do need to get you back to Leia though.”

“Lead on and I will follow,” Luke says.

Wedge takes a couple of steps down the corridor in the direction towards Leia’s office, then stops and looks back at Luke. “You don’t know where we’re going, do you?”

Luke shakes his head. “Not a clue.” He falls into step beside Wedge.

“I’m starting to wonder whether the real reason you didn’t come back sooner is because you were lost,” Wedge jokes, following the twisting corridors round. “You always were overly reliant on Artoo for your astronavigation. Also, if anyone else under my command ever confused Dagobah for Haven, I’d be having serious words with them.”

“Hey, you’ve ribbed me enough about that one over the years, I said I was sorry!” Luke protests. “Next time I pull a disappearing trick, I’ll be sure to leave you a note, okay?”

“Next time you pull a disappearing trick, I’m coming with you,” Wedge says, throwing an arm around Luke’s shoulders.

Luke leans into the touch. “Yeah. Okay. I’d like that.”


End file.
